Way to Digi-Litereate India?:November 2011

Asia’s First Monthly Magazine on ICT in Education

volume 7

I issue 11 I November 2011 I ISSN 0973-4139 I ` 75 www.digitalLearning.in

Dr KK Talwar Chairman, Medical Council of India

RAJENDRA PAWAR Chairman and Managing Director, NIIT -17 15

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SSN 0973-4139

volume

07

issue

11

contents

07 COVER STORY Way to Digi-literate India

By Pragya Gupta

ACADEMIA SPEAK

22

“Research Needs Proper Attention in Our Educational Culture”

Dr KK Talwar, Chairman, Medical Council of India

CASE STUDY

10

Enhancing Employability in Technical Education System

24

The Milind Deora Youth Employability Initiative

42

POLICY MATTERS

28

HIGHER EDUCATION

34

Bridging the Divide Inspiration & arguments for integrating arts & science teachinge

EVENT REPORT

18

The Future Belongs to Cloud Campus

Higher Education Needs Scalable Solutions Like Cloud Computing Sarath Sura - Managing Director and Vijay Pasupulati, Executive Vice President, Winzest

NIIT Empowers 10 Million Students Across India

TECH focus

Taking Technology Closer to Education

CORPORATE DIARY

38 16

Internet as a Catalyst for Change

EXPERT CORNER

48

A Solution Whose Time has Come

news Higher Education

30 4

Teaching with Portals can Give You an Edge november / 2011

K-12

editorial

>

Making Tech-Enabled Literacy a Reality in India Tablets have revolutionalised computing like never before. A number of initiatives across the world are putting tablets and other mobile computing devices to innovative usage. Uganda is an example where iPads being used by Agriculture scientists for remote soil analysis and related applications. The launch of the ambitious $ 35 Aakash tablet for students is another attempt at using technology for inclusive development. Having started as a lifestyle device- out of the reach of many - tablets are much more affordable today and promise to be more so in the near future. For a country with abysmal internet penetration, the advent of such mobile computing devices is a promising development that can go a long way in bridging the digital divide.

Further, this issue focuses on the increasing adoption of cloud technologies in the education segment, owing to its benefits like elimination of capex and other maintenance and infra upgradation complexities, thereby enabling well connected and updated campus infrastructure.

With increased Internet penetration, teaching- learning through portals has been gradually growing. Highlighting emerging trends like online education through portals in India, the feature on teaching and learning through portals, covers information on how online portals are coming up to help students and teachers enhance their interest for education with the ease of anytime and convenient learning.

Recently a very interesting forum on internet governance was concluded in Kenya, which drew attention towards the importance of online governance for developing countries and how it can be carried forward. A succinctly compiled report on the forum is presented in this issue on effective governance for the masses.

India is not very far off in utilising the existing infrastructure in the best way possible and in creating an effective ecosystem for governance, education and health.

Taking the effort forward, I am privileged to announce the seventh eINDIA ,which is being convened from 15-17 December, 2011 at Mahatma Mandir, Gandhinagar, Gujarat. The event is being organised by Department of Science and Technology, Government of Gujarat, and Gujarat Infomatics Limited, along with Center for Science, Development and Media Studies (CSDMS) and ELETS Technomedia Pvt. Ltd. The conference is being hosted by the Government of Gujarat, and is co-organised by Department of Information Technology, Ministry of Communications & IT, Government of India and All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE).

I invite all our readers and stakeholders to join us at the ICT movement.

Dr. Ravi Gupta Editor-in-Chief Ravi.Gupta@elets.in

NOVEMber / 2011 www.digitallearning.in

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inbox Advisory Board Prof. Asha Kanwar, Vice President, Commonwealth of Learning Dr. Jyrki Pulkkinen, CEO, Global eSchools & Communities Initiative (GeSCI) Subhash Chandra Khuntia, Principal Secretary to Government, Public Works Department, Government of Karnataka Prof. V N Rajasekharan Pillai, Vice Chancellor, Indira GandhiI National Open University (IGNOU) Prof S S Mantha, Chairman (Acting), All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE)

President: Dr. M P Narayanan Editor-in-Chief: Dr. Ravi Gupta gm Finance: Ajit Kumar dgm strategy: Raghav Mittal programme specialist: Dr. Rajeshree Dutta Kumar Partnerships & Alliances: Sheena Joseph, Shuchi Smita, Ankita Verma

Asia’s first Monthly Magazine on e-Government (www.egovonline.net)

Key Highlights Cover Story Pushing the IT agenda- The introduction of the National ICT policy (draft) is giving rise to a lot of hope as well as questions as to how will it leverage the whole IT sector’s growth for the economic as well as social empowerment of the country.

Features on e-Passport, e-Authentication Interview Nivedan Sahani, VP and Business Head, Tata Teleservices

Editorial: Divya Chawla, Rachita Jha, Dhirendra Pratap Singh, Pragya Gupta, Sonam Gulati, Shally Makin (editorial@elets.in) Sales & Marketing: Fahimul Haque, Mob: +91-8860651632, Jyoti Lekhi, Rakesh Ranjan, Ragini Shrivastav, Amit Kumar Pundhir, Neha Mishra, Garima Singh (sales@elets.in) Subscription & Circulation: Jagwant Kumar, Mobile: +91-8130296484; Gunjan Singh, Mobile: +91-8860635832 subscription@elets.in Design & Creatives: Bishwajeet Kumar Singh, Om Prakash Thakur, Shyam Kishore Web Development: Zia Salahuddin, Anil Kumar IT infrastructure: Mukesh Sharma, Zuber Ahmed

The Enterprise of Healthcare (www.ehealthonline.org)

Events: Vicky Kalra Human resource: Sushma Juyal Legal: R P Verma Accounts: Anubhav Rana, Subhash Chandra Dimri All India Distribution by: Ibh Books & Magazines Distributors Pvt. Ltd Editorial & Marketing Correspondence digitalLearning - G-4 Sector 39, NOIDA 201301, India, Phone: +91 120 2502181-85, Fax: +91 120 2500060 Email: info@digitalLearning.in digitalLEARNING is published by Elets Technomedia Pvt. Ltd. in technical collaboration with Centre for Science, Development and Media Studies (CSDMS).

Owner, Publisher, Printer - Ravi Gupta, Printed at Vinayak Print Media D-320, Sector 10, Noida, U.P. and published from 710, Vasto Mahagun Manor, F-30, Sector - 50, Noida, UP Editor: Ravi Gupta

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Key Highlights Cover Story Hospital Infrastructure- Redefining Hospital Infrastructure on the back of Technology. Indian hospitals with the mantra of star facilities and bleedingedge technology are writing a new chapter in its healthcare services.

Interviews: Amol Naikwadi, Joint Managing Director of Indus Health Plus Dr Prasad Sistla, Chief of Telemedicine, Care Foundation Commander Girish Kumar VSM (Retd), Practice Head, India – Healthcare & Life Sciences, HP Enterprise Services

cover STORY COVER story

India’s demographic diversity has always been a challenge for access to education. The concept of low cost tablet gives a ray of hope to impart education access and opportunities to all, thereby bringing about an inclusive education system

By Pragya Gupta

november / 2011 www.digitallearning.in

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cover story

Launch of Aakash tablet at Vigyan Bhawan

Information and Communication technologies have been recognised as revolutionary tools that can leverage India’s demographic advantage and turn the country into a knowledge powerhouse by nurturing and honing the knowledge base. Various policies have been launched to improve access, equity and enhance quality of education across the country. National Mission on Education through ICT (NMEICT), launched by Ministry of Human Resource Development in February 2009 is one of them. The Mission has a budget of INR 4612 crore. The National Mission on Education – Sakshat comprises of 48 components structured broadly around building content, enabling access and developing low cost access cum computing devices.

Despite having content available on cloud and accessible to all, India still lags behind in making content available. One of the major reasons for this is the unavailability of devices in terms of affordability for all.

Tablet Driven Education More than 70,000 ebooks are used now in 1500 colleges, a fact that highlights the increasing adoption and acceptability for e-content. With ever-increasing numbers, there is a need for a device which can offer content in a user-friendly and innovative manner. Tablets fulfil these criteria to a large degree, a fact reflected in the increasing acceptability of the devices in the education segment. A large variety of customised tablets are now available, with big vendors like Samsung, HCL, Dell, Motorola, etc., coming out with their offerings. Starting at a low price of INR 10,000 the market now offers sufficient choices that suit a variety of pockets and needs.

The tablet, initially considered more of lifestyle device, is steadily evolving over time and is increasingly being looked at as a potential device for enhancing accessibility of education, if available at lower price points. Starting with the vision of the OLPC project – that of making laptops available for a measly $100 – technological innovation is resulting into affordable devices that can drive growth in developing countries.

Low cost, technology-enabled education is the need of the

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hour and is perhaps the only feasible manner in which the ocean of knowledge can be accessed by anyone, anywhere and at anytime, even without access to teachers or other traditional infrastructure needed for education. It creates a pull of information for those who really want to learn by eroding the issues like unavailability of resources and inaccessibility of schools and college. Even the best e-content cannot have significant impact unless it reaches the vast majority of learners with ease, as and when they demand it. The low cost access and computing devices enable knowledge and students to access one another, and also enable collaborative learning.

Although there are low cost options such as desktop virtualisation, low cost PCs etc., but their reach and affordability to a larger section is still a challenge.

The ultra low cost tablet Aakash recently launched by Kapil Sibal, Union Minister for Human Resourced development is a $ 35 dollar access cum computing device. Datawind is manufacturing and supplying Aakash tablets in India. While the subsidised version would be restricted to students only, the tablets will be made available to general consumers with the name of Ubislate.

A Digital Dawn Aakash tablet is targeted at secondary and higher education.

The Government is eyeing children across the world to make education accessible to all. The Indian Institute of Technology Rajasthan has played an important role in the project, completed under the NME-ICT. Questions had been asked over the economic feasibility of the devices at the cost of USD 35 announced by Kapil Sibal. The lowest bidder quoted an ex-factory price of US$ 37.98 which was close to the cost mentioned by HRM. The cost comprised of the costs of components, material as well as those of manufacturing expenses. The final landed price of $49.98/unit (which translated to INR 2276 at the exchange rate at the time of the order) included taxes, levies, and charges like freight, insurance, servicing and documentation, etc. The landed price also includes one-year free replacement warranty

cover story Aakash vs Other Tablets: Comparison

Aakash

BeetelMagiq

Reliance 3G OLPC

OlivePad

Samsung

iPad

Operating System

Android 2.2

Android 2.2

Android 2.3

Android 2.2

Android 2.2

iOS

Screen

7” Resistive

7” Capacitive

7” capacitive 7.5” Not touch 7” capacitive

7”capacitive

10” capacitive

Network

Wifi, GPRS and 3G

Wifiand 3G

Wifi and 3G

Wifi

Wifi and 3G

Wifi and 3G

Wifi

Processor

366 MHz + HD video 1Ghz Co processor+ graphics accelerator

80MHz

433 MHZ

600MHz

1GHz

1GHz

Fedora Linux

RAM 256MB

256MB 512MB 512MB 512MB 512MB 256MB

Flash

2GB+2GB micro SD card

8GB

USB Port

Micro USB port

Micro USB Port No USB port

4GB

2GB

512MB

16GB

3 USB ports

1 Mini USB port No USB port

16GB No USB port

Camera yes

yes yes yes yes yes yes

Price 2,250

9,990

12,999 15,750 15,990 23,500 31,900 Source: MHRD

from the manufacturer.

The development of this device has been done in India plant at Hyderabad by a private vendor DataWind. Suneet Singh Tuli,CEO, DataWind said, “Our goal was to break the price barrier for computing and Internet access. Working with IIT Rajasthan, and NME-ICT, we have created a product that will finally bring affordable computing and Internet access to the masses.

This is not only a concept that applies to India, but has ignited the imagination of governments around the world. The Aakash is proudly made in India, and is destined to revolutionise computing and Internet access for the world.”

Reality Check Using this device, learners will be able to access all the thousands of items of content available on the Sakshat portal and other educational web-sites. But initially each state will get 3300 devices and these devices will be given to identified state coordinators for testing. These state coordinators will be asked to submit their report on these devices and according to these reports, government will take further action. This device was also distributed amongst 500 children at the launch itself.

Sibal underlined that Aakash would help in eliminating digital illiteracy. For this he also emphasised the need for having high quality study content to be made accessible to students. He also called for support and partnership from all the stakeholders so that the device could cost even less, while praising the team which had worked towards the creation and production of this device.

Dr Prem Kalra, Director of IIT Rajasthan quoted in a website said that Aakash was an inspiration and encourages entrepreneurship in a big manner. “It’s true, there are glitches. This (the event) too is a field test. The state coordinators will take the tablets for field testing all around the country.”

With the launch of the tablet, criticism from competitors have also started. Satish Jha, OLPC criticising the product said that the tablet is for colleges and urban areas, it doesn’t address

“Our goal was

to break the price barrier for computing and Internet access” Suneet Singh CEO, DataWind

the constituency OLPC India Foundation targets – the underprivileged kids. It has no ambition to give education at all. It is just a cheap device, an access device. It is a consumption device, not an educational, creative or production device.

On the price front, Jha claims they can produce a sub-$100 version of the OLPC. “We can produce an OLPC for less than $100 if we just remove the swivel and a few features. But we don’t do that because a child needs a complete environment to learn, it is a school in a box. The $35 device meets the expectation of somebody who wants to manufacture the device but not the needs of the users,” he complained.

While the market may have many tablets with better configuration but even then their performance comes down as soon as they are fully loaded with applications. In urban areas, students prefer laptops more than tablet for education as they are multipurpose devices at the same price point. Tablet is more of handheld device, which, with its limited performance, is a craze among students as a lifestyle device.

However, low cost device make sense in rural areas but connectivity is the challenge there. Devices can be made available but connectivity incurs charges, which should also be taken care of by the government and private sector.

november / 2011 www.digitallearning.in

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case study

Enhancing

Employability in

Technical Education System The case study provides information on the existing scenario of technical education at under graduate level with specific reference to expansion of technical education and teaching-learning process in majority of the engineering colleges. A matrix of teachinglearning process is presented to draw attention of teachers for providing varied learning experiences which are generally not given the desired seriousness by the teachers while imparting instructions. It highlights the need for promoting entrepreneurship as a career and details out strategies for making the system vibrant for greater employability of students

By Professor (Dr.) L.N. Mittal Director-QIP, Geeta Institute of Management & Technology

There has been a phenomenal expansion of technical education at under graduate level throughout the length and breadth of the country. If one tries to find out the number of engineering colleges and the intake capacity at this level at a given point of time, it may be difficult to quantify the information. From the data available online, in the year 2010-11, the number of engineering colleges are 3241 with an intake capacity of 13,24,000 students in the country (www.aicte-india.org). Today the scenario is such that, any student passing out with 50 percent marks (in Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics) at 10+2 level is able to secure a seat in an engineering college.

Though the admission in the Engineering Colleges has become quite easy but the curriculum of various courses at under graduate level requires considerable amount of ‘cognitive abilities’ for comprehension of concepts, principles and practices at the part of students. A good percentage of students are not able to cope up with their studies, with the result that 35-40 percent of the students are placed in compartments in the very first year.

It has also been experienced that majority of industrial or field organisations do not consider students to appear for

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placement interviews who have less than 60-65 percent marks right from 10+ to 10+2 and up to graduation without having any compartment (s). There are many students who do not qualify the above stipulation. Further, due to worldwide recession, the employment market is having an adverse affect due to which the wage employment opportunities are shrinking.

In the context of above background, some expectations of the corporate world from the engineering students in terms of their employability are given below.

Expections of Corporate World from Budding Engineers Engineers are basically cognitive workers. They plan activities and resources at macro and micro levels such as physical, human and financial for achieving desired results at minimal cost. Interaction with number of corporate executives reveals that industry or corporate world expects engineers to possess the following skills • Acquisitive capabilities: the capability to acquire knowledge/technologies for effective functioning in various functional areas.

case study

BenQ-India’s No. 1 Projector Brand BenQ is officially the No. 1 projector brand in India with a market share of more than 20%.

According to FutureSource consulting, BenQ is the market leader in India with a whopping market share of 34% & 39% in SVGA Short-through projector category respectively.

Enabling over 15000 classrooms in India in first six months of 2011 through technologically advanced & innovative projectors , BenQ is surely leading the way in education.

november / 2011 www.digitallearning.in

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case study

Matrix of Teaching-Learning Process There is a matrix of teaching-learning process, which indicates various aspect of learning viz: cognitive, psychomotor and affective and highlights the type of learning experiences to be given to students for developing what is required from the students in the corporate world.

Sr. No Aspects of Learning

Learning Experiences Lecture Tutorial Class Class

Industrial Project Training Work

1.

Knowledge

Ö

---

---

Ö

Ö

Ö

2.

Comprehension

Partly

Ö

Ö

---

Ö

Ö

3.

Application

Partly

Ö

Ö

---

Ö

Ö

4.

Analysis

Partly

Ö

Ö

---

---

Ö

5.

Synthesis

---

Ö

---

---

---

Ö

6.

Evaluation

---

---

Ö

---

---

Ö

7.

Learning to Learn

---

---

---

Ö

Ö

Ö

8.

Report Writing

---

---

---

Ö

Ö

Ö

9.

Communication Skills

---

---

---

Ö

Ö

Ö

10.

Interpersonal Skills

---

---

---

---

Ö

Ö

11.

Psychomotor Skills

---

---

Ö

---

Ö

Ö

12.

Attitudes & Values

Ö

---

Ö

Ö

Partly

• Adaptive capabilities: the flexibility of adopting new methods and techniques.

• Operative capabilities: the know-how of production/ fabrication/installation practices, codes and standards, production engineering, diagnostic and managerial skills.

• Innovative capabilities: ability to anticipate future demands and to develop new design, processes, technologies and systems.

It can be seen that most of the aspects of learning can be developed by paying greater attention to practical work in laboratories and workshop and even more through industrial training and project work. This matrix is highly relevant for the faculty working in the engineering colleges should who can implement the same in spirit of the benefit for the students and sustenance of the system as a whole. Further, good practical training and providing need based project assignments are also vital to enhance the employability of students as well as promote entrepreneurship.

Entrepreneurship as a Career An entrepreneur is a person who has possession of a new enterprise, venture or idea and is accountable for the inherent risks and the outcome. Entrepreneurs emerge from the population on demand and become leaders because they perceive opportunities available and are well positioned to take advantage of these.

• Necessity is the mother of invention • Motivational factors of an individual such as need to excel • Knowledge/understanding of socio-economic environment

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Laboratories Seminars Workshops

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Good practical training and providing need based project assignments are vital to enhance the employability of students as well as promote entrepreneurship • Managerial capabilities of an individual • Understanding ones strength and weaknesses • Dignity of labour Entrepreneurship thus may be defined as a career in one’s own business that produces job creators and not job seekers which play a vital role in changing the stereo typed environment in the engineering colleges. This also enables in developing innovative capabilities, learning-to-learn skills, thinking and problem solving skills and a research culture in the Institutions. This can be made possible by properly utilizing the current slots of practical training of 4-6 weeks after 4th and 6th semesters respectively and minor and major project periods to transform at least 20-30% students as “Cognitive Entrepreneurs”.

“Cognitive Entrepreneurs” are perceived as persons who provide solution alternatives to different type of problems of the Industrial/Commercial world. These Entrepreneurs utilize their cognitive abilities like analysis, synthesis and evaluation or in other words thinking capabilities to find solution to problem faced by client organizations.

case study

Strategies to Enhance Employability of Students: Role of Students • Seriousness in studies. An engineering student requires 12-14 hours of study per day, around 7 hours sleep and 4 hours a day for his/her personal self • Seriousness about practical work in laboratories and workshops • Developing the habit of reading from books and online Journals • Undertaking industrial training seriously by involving themselves in to task oriented or problem-solving oriented workbench involvements • Taking as far as possible live project assignments to develop learning-to-learn skills, transfer skills, thinking skills and innovative skills • Taking part in debates and declamation contests for developing confidence in written and verbal communication • Undergoing programmes leading to development of soft skills • Always asking one ‘what is that I am proud of’ Role of Teachers • Clearly understand the concepts and principles involved in teaching a subject.

• Convert teaching into learning by providing varied learning experiences like: tutorials, laboratory and workshop sessions, seminars etc on a planned basis.

• Establish linkages with the world of work for making Teaching-Learning Process involving ‘Concept of Use’ i.e. applied learning.

• Provide live project assignments to the students.

• Play a role model before the students to inculcate right attitudes and values.

Role of Engineering Colleges • It is essential to establish symbiotic relationship with the world of work for which initiative will have to be taken by the technical institutions.

• Each technical Institute will have to identify its strengths for providing its services to the industrial world as per their needs.

• Practical training of students is an important component of curriculum. This needs proper planning and implementation. This will be helpful to produce good professionals as well as good entrepreneurs. Involvement of teachers is most essential for making practical training more meaningful and effective.

• Greater emphasis is required to be given to practical work in laboratories and workshops as well as on project work.

A good percentage of students should be diverted to undertake such project assignments which help them to start their own enterprises.

• Development of appropriate communication skills also has a high priority in the world of business. Various strategies

Development of appropriate communication skills also has a high priority in the world of business. Various strategies like organising seminars, paper reading / declamation contests and organising group discussion sessions can help a great deal to develop communication skills like organizing seminars, paper reading / declamation contexts and organising group discussion sessions can help a great deal to develop communication skills. Establishment of language laboratory can also be helpful in this direction.

• Efforts should be made to develop reading and writing habits in the students through guided library studies. This will promote learning-to-learn skills in the students.

• There is need to revise the curricula of different courses to make these more industry oriented and practice based rather than theoretical in nature..

• Promotion of entrepreneurship in the system is the need of the day. It is important to provide entrepreneurial awareness to all students by organizing camps, identification of potential entrepreneurs and grooming them through practical training and project work phases to promote an entrepreneurial culture in the technical institutions.

• Teaching should be converted in to learning and learning should be converted in to innovations and developments which is the essential foundation for wage employment as well as becoming an entrepreneur.

Human Resource Development is a serious business. Institutions are required to plan activities at macro and micro levels. Teachers are the kingpin in planning all the above aspects of instructional processes. Establishing close relationship with the industrial world will go a long way in training, development and placement of students. Faculty has great responsibility in making teaching-learning process more meaningful and a rewarding experience. Further, promotion of entrepreneurship is also essential for economic development of the country.

Author Professor (Dr.) L.N. Mittal Director-QIP Geeta Institute of Management & Technology Kanipla, Kurukshetra-136 118 (Haryana)

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NEWS - HIGHER EDUCATION

Prof M Aslam appointed as acting VC of IGNOU Prof. M. Aslam has taken over as the new acting Vice Chancellor of the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) after taking charge from Prof. V. N. Rajasekharan Pillai, former Vice Chancellor of the university who completed his five year tenure on 20th October 2011.

Prof. Aslam was serving the university as a Director of the School of Continuing Education (SOCE) and professor of Rural Development since 1992. He was also the Director for National Center for Innovations in Distance Education (NCIDE) of the university for over 3 years.

He has rich and varied experience both at national and international levels in University Administration, ICT, Communication and Extension, Distance & Continuing Education, Multi-Media in Distance Education, Training Methodology, Rural Development, Training skills, Monitoring and Evaluation, Panchayati Raj and Social Change from his 33 years career in the field, (20 years as Professor) out of which he spent about 8 years abroad on an international assignment as Director (Trg) CIRDAP between 1981-88.

India to set up education planning institute in Burundi India has inked a pact with Burundi, a landlocked country in eastern Africa, for setting up an institute of education planning and administration to take its capacity building initiatives in Africa forward.

He has been consultant to various international/ UN bodies including the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, UNDP and EDI of the World Bank.

He has worked as a Project Director for Panchayati Raj Project, developed a Multi-Media Distance Education package for Panchayati Raj functionaries elected throughout the country. The package was introduced among 58,000 elected functionaries of Panchayats in four selected districts of Madhya Pradesh and has been conferred COL President’s Award of Excellence at PAN Commonwealth Forum in March, 1999.

Prof. Aslam is an M.A. in Sociology with first division and second position (1973). He got his M.Phil in 1975 and Ph.D. (Sociology) in 1978.

An agreement between National University of Education Planning & Administration (NUEPA), New Delhi and Burundi’s Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research was inked last week for setting up India-Africa Institute of Education Planning and Administration (IAIEPA) in capital Bujumbura.

RM Education Solutions India opens third facility in Technopark RM Education Solutions India (RMESI) has launched an additional facility at the Leela Infopark within the Technopark campus in Trivandrum. The new office has a capacity of 217 thus bringing the total strength of RMESI in India to 750. The new centre on the 8th floor of Leela Infopark is in addition to its existing office on the 13th floor and its registered office cum development centre in the Gayatri building.

GMAC gets an Indian website The Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC) that administers the GMAT exam launched its India-specific website — mba.com-India. The website has been designed exclusively for Indian aspirants and lists a detailed classification of the top business schools in India.

Indian B-schools accepting GMAT score and placements offered by B-schools accepting GMAT scores globally.

“We’ve seen a dramatic growth in the number of Indian candidates interested in pursuing management education over the last several years,” said Ashish Bhardwaj, regional director for South Asia at GMAC. “With significant growth in acceptance of the GMAT at Indian business schools, these candidates have more choice. This new site will help them navigate the path to a quality graduate management degree with content designed specifically for this market.”

Mba.com hosts information around funding options, cost implications and the prospective return on investment. The portal also runs a thread of video testimonials by Indian students, narrating their journey and experiences from preparing for GMAT and making it to the business school of their choice.

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event report

L-R Mr. Kapil Sibal, Hon’ble Union Minister for Human Resource Development and Communications and IT, Govt. of India; Mr. Rajendra Pawar, Chairman NIIT & Hemant Sethi, President School Learning Solutions, NIIT at an event held at the not-for-profit NIIT University campus in Neemrana to mark the 10 million milestone of NIIT’s School Learning Solutions Division

NIIT Empowers 10 Million Students Across India NIIT School Learning Solutions celebrated monumental milestone at NIIT University in Neemrana After successfully empowering over 10 million school children across the nation through computer training and having delivered IT-assisted education to the doorsteps of over 16,600 schools, NIIT Ltd.’s Schools Learning Solutions (SLS) business, celebrated its accomplishments, on 7th October 2011, at its campus in Delhi’s satellite city – Neemarana.

Inaugurated by chief guest, Kapil Sibal, the Union Minister of Human Resource Development, Communications and Information Technology, the event received congratulations from the honourable minister for touching the lives of people who have never seen a computer—the marginalised and the have nots. Praising the SLS, Sibal went on to declare, that “for just one institution to provide computer learning to 10 million

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students was a monumental task and not possible without passion.”

In his keynote, the Minister talked about the transformation taking place within education over the centuries, where teachers were no longer the sole repositories of knowledge. “The 21st century has changed all that, and in this environment, the role of students, teachers, content, and delivery has also altered,” Sibal stated.

According to the Minister, there was new energy in imparting knowledge to learners. Computers had placed the world in the grasp of their hands.

“We want to reach knowledge to the disadvantaged, so that they can access it by just a touch of their fingers. That is

event report

India’s journey for tomorrow. The question is how we can take this journey forward,” Sibal said.

The Minister added that the 21st century was all about collaboration, not just between the teacher and the student, but between the community, the neighbourhood, the private sector and governments. In order to empower children, it was important for the entire eco-system, and all stakeholders to engage and redefine their relationships.

“This needs a paradigm shift—in the way the role of teachers and students—is reinvented. We will have to reinvent the way learners interact with nature, and the world beyond. Education is not just about cold print. In the 20th century, text books were the key. Today, there is a need to break through the walls of the classroom. Technology is the enabler that will help students go beyond the classroom, grasp the world, traverse the information highway and relate to the environment around them.

Teachers will have to help students enter the doorways they want to go through, to choose the paths they want,” he shared.

“Open your minds, break barriers,” the Minister exhorted the students.

Under the aegis of SLS, NIIT launched its ‘NIIT@Schools’ pro-

gramme in 1999 with the prestigious BOOT project, targeting 371 government schools in Tamil Nadu. It now reaches 16,600 schools in 18 Indian states. From Keylong (Himachal Pradesh) in the North, to Rameswaram (Tamil Nadu) in the South, and from Vandh (Gujarat) in the West, to Agartala (Tripura) in the East, the programme spans the length and breadth of the country, connecting with students in the farthest and remotest corners of India.

The minister recognised the exemplary performances of Mahasweta Kumar from the Mangaldoi Government Girls Higher Secondary School in Darrang, Assam, the national winner of the MCA 2011. Anirudh Iyengar from Pune, was also acknowledged as the first candidate to successfully complete the innovative IGNOU certificate programme in chess as a mind booster.

Sibal also presented plaques and citations to four principals, who had received National Awards for introducing computer based learning in their institutions.

During its historic journey, SLS has created 23,936 hours of content, set up 1,07,209 computer based learning nodes, and selected, trained and certified nearly four lakh computer teachers in India’s schools. NIIT has indirectly contributed to the development of several villages in the country where basic urban facilities like electricity, telephone and internet connectivity was missing. Children in these villages now receive computer learning. Located in the nooks and crannies of India, these villages now have schools with regular power supply, and telephone and Internet connectivity.

NIIT flag-bearers including Rajendra Pawar, Chairman and Managing Director, NIIT, Hemant Sethi, President, School Learning Solutions, Rajeev Shorey, NU President and Kapil Sibal, the Union minister for Human Resource Development who set the ceremony in motion with the traditional lighting of the lamp, against the backdrop of an invocation.

Talking in detail about SLS and its evolution, its President,.

Hemant Sethi highlighted the key signposts in its timeline.

These, he said, included the launch of HIWEL (the well known Hole in the Wall project) that aimed to take ‘minimally invasive’ computer learning to underprivileged children; the NIIT MindChampions Academy (MCA), set up jointly with World Chess Champion, Viswanathan Anand to promote chess in schools; and NIIT’s innovations in the area of education such as the Interactive Classroom, the Mobile Science Lab and Math Lab. Sethi spoke about how the MCA, guided by Anand, had set a new Guinness World Records in 2010, enabling 20,430 participants to play Chess simultaneously, as part of the Swarnim Gujarat initiative. He also shared the news about NABET, an accreditation programme for schools, introduced in 2011.

Sethi’s introduction to SLS was followed by a special film on NIIT’s tryst with India’s children, and how it had evoked a spirit of curiosity and the love for computers in them.

The event was brought to a close by Rajeev Shorey, who thanked the Minister for joining NIIT in its historic celebration, and encouraging both learners and teachers to look to the future.

november / 2011 www.digitallearning.in

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Tech Focus

Campus Management Solutions

The Future Belongs to Cloud Campus As thousands of students swarm the gates of colleges and institutes during admissions and declaration of results, the need for a method to madness has been much felt by universities and colleges for long. As a step towards faster and hassle-free campusbased activities, many colleges are now using a comprehensive campus management solution - this offers features to allow students to access all the campus-related info easily and manage key administrative activities especially the executive and operational processes for college seamlessly across many locations

By Rachita Jha

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Tech Focus

“The future clearly demands for popularising cloud service in India for CMS Applications in schools, universities, colleges and training institutes as it has emerged as a technology that can eliminate the up-front investment costs for academic Institutes in a competitive environment” Leena Periyasamy Project Manager , Ecole Solutions

The wait for exam results is now much shorter than what it used to be earlier; today all you need to do is type an SMS sitting your study room or click on the college website. Welcome to the world of e-campus – a virtual environment that gives you access to all the college related activities, admission, assessment, examinations, e-learning, faculty interaction, fee submissions and much more all available online. The many benefits that this technology offers to students, parents, faculty, staff has led to an increasing number of colleges and educational institutes adopting campus management solutions. However the transformation has been a long and gradual process.

It is not an easy decision for any higher education varsity to host all their operations and activities online, as even today a large volume of data processed in higher education is still done manually in paper and the staff at most of the colleges is yet to get tech savvy in their day-to-day activities. A pro-active and committed management leadership that can steer the e-culture and make a campus almost paperless has been an important key to the success of the many ecampus initiatives. With more and more institutions realising the long-term benefits and cost savings of using a campus management solution (CMS) – the transition to ‘e’-culture has taken a jump-start. The CMS software offers a simple and structured solution that has created to turnaround the overall efficiency and accuracy metrics for many manual processes that are now automated in the colleges. “It’s a huge and potential-packed market of CMS in India. With the trend and need of campus management software in India increasing, in next five years the market size will be more than

ten thousand crore,” says Abhay Panjiyar, CEO, CEON Solutions. e-Campus on the Rise Currently there is only a small percentage of the entire higher education community that is using this technology on their campus - but numbers are on the rise. “ CMS has promising growth in India as the education system is already blended with eLearning technology. Stakeholders of education industry look for a massive change in teaching pedagogy, content delivery and value of education,” says Leena Periyasamy, Project Manager , Ecole Solutions. This demand has opened up the educational technology market and today many players operating in the large, medium and small scale business segments offer innovative and easy-to-use software platforms for education institutions. “As campuses are growing fast and more and more students are joining in while campuses are offering more and more courses, it is imperative for many of them to immediately adopt CMS to enable efficient delivery of quality education. The growing maturity of the market and the increasing number of universities and bodies of higher education will be the driving forces for the market,” says Dr Jaijit Bhattacharya, Director, Government Affairs, Hewlett Packard India.

Campus Management Software not only automates the process but also saves on resources. This also provides the convenience for the management team to extract the reports and understands the performance of their institute anytime anywhere. Enhanced admission mechanisms, flexible course registrations, advanced grading systems are well designed and customised in the CMS which accommodates the institutes’ and teachers’ requirements. “There are numerous technology platforms that are being used. Most

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Tech Focus

of the market appears to be using bespoke developed solutions, but increasingly, educational bodies are moving towards off-the-shelf solutions. Some are also adopting Open Source solutions. There are even attempts to have an e-cash system integrated into the solution, to enable cashless transactions on the campus,” says Dr Jaijit Bhattacharya.

[LMS], Digital Library System to unite all facilities on a single platform,” avers Leena Periyasamy.

A Campus on the Cloud The common route of organic growth of any institution is to open new branches across many locations. However to manage and monitor the same requires intense manpower and fillArrival of Smart Cards ing systems. It is also an investment to install the software at The use of smart cards is a new technology wave that is all the branches followed by continuous maintenance needs. poised to enter into the campus technology segment. The fuHere, a cloud-based CMS application empowers you to stay ture might witness a transformation of the ID Card that can be connected, access and execute all the features of the software available in an all new avatar to give the user access to many seamlessly at any location at any branch office. The cloud hostmore facilities and functions in campus and would assist in ing of applications accelerates the Institutes’ growth capabilismoother and more efficient transactions and increased secuties and provides limitless scalability as they branch out to new rity. “A CMS platform can be easily operated with full compatlocations in any part of India or worldwide. The cloud-based ibility using mobile, IVRS, smart cards, etc., as it is built on flexCMS platform has hence caught the eye of many technology ible, well-designed and multi-layered architecture. Capturing providers to ease the burden of such challenges experienced data from bar code system, RFID Tags, etc, pushing the data by the educational institutes. The future clearly demands for into CMS and generating MIS Reports for different user levpopularising cloud service in India for CMS Applications in els are some highlights of CMS for the users. Moreover, CMS schools, universities, colleges and training institutes as it has can also be integrated with any Learning Management System emerged as a technology that can eliminate the up-front investment costs for academic Institutes in a competitive environment as present today,” says Leena Periyasamy.

CMS implementation through Cloud Technology brings cost efficiency, improves customer satisfaction, drives revenue growth and fosters innovation. As a fierce competition has created a race amongst the educational institutes to attract the best students and offer world-class campus environment, an e-campus surely offers the tech savvy students an e-friendly learning environment and introduces the faculty and staff to interactive tools that can ensure careful planning, systematic approach and accurate control of adDr Jaijit Bhattacharya ministrative processes to accelerate perforDirector, Government Affairs, Hewlett Packard India mance and maintain a competitive edge.

“Most of the market appears to be using bespoke developed solutions, but increasingly, educational bodies are moving towards off-the-shelf solutions.

Some are also adopting Open Source solutions”

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academia speak

n o h i t c r ten t a A e l er s p a e o n r “Reeds dP ucatio

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ar, l w l Ta edica is K K , M ia Dr irman of Ind ards

il w a d Ch ounc ng to g an y i C ork enin ualit w gth h q ion, n ig at stre ing h educ ful to vid al ing ical pro edic mean med try. m is f n h wth o e cou with c i wh gro in th tion tap the ices terac Pra res v a in ser n an ndra e sh the t n h I ire u h, o Dh Sing hts ab ucatio ia d d ig ins ical e in In o d i me enar c s

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academia speak

What is the role of MCI in enhancing and streamlining medical education in India?

The Medical Council of India was established in 1934 under the Indian Medical Council Act, 1933, now repealed, with the main function of establishing uniform standards of higher qualifications in medicine and recognition of medical qualifications in India and abroad. The objectives of the Council are maintenance of uniform standards of medical education, both undergraduate and postgraduate, recommendation for recognition/de-recognition of medical qualifications of medical institutions of India or foreign countries and permanent registration or provisional registration of doctors with recognised medical qualifications.

The number of medical colleges had increased steadily during the years after Independence. It was felt that the provisions of Indian Medical Council Act were not adequate to meet with the challenges posed by the very fast development and the progress of medical education in the country. Hence, the Medical Council of India came into being for streamlining medical education in the country.

According to you, what should be done to improve the quality of medical education in our country?

There is a lot of work to be done to ensure that the quality of medical education being provided in the country maintains the highest standards.

Our team is working at understanding the problems and challenges at hand and ensuring that we have a solution that is not just workable but also brings in good results. The need to streamline medical education was an urgent one. Besides basic medical education there is also an urgent need to look at higher medical research programmes and the education provided by private players in the field of medicine.

The Medical Council of India had already issued a notification announcing nationwide common entrance examination for admissions to medical colleges in the country which the Centre promptly withdrew following protests by southern states. The Central government is also considering for inclusion in the 12th plan a major programme to support high-focus states to set up or expand medical colleges.

In the modern age of technology, faculty training is also an important part of medical education. What steps has been taken for faculty development in medical colleges?

We have Faculty Development Programmes to improve the quality of medical training by training the teachers. The aim of these programmes is to sensitise teachers about new concepts in teaching and assessment methods, to develop knowledge and clinical skills required for performing the role of competent and effective teacher, administrator, researcher and mentor, to assist clinicians to acquire competency in communication and behavioral skills and update knowledge using modern information and research methodology tools.

The Medical Council of India has made it manda-

The Central government is also considering for inclusion in the 12th plan a major programme to support high-focus states to set up or expand medical colleges tory for all medical colleges to establish Medical Education Units (MEUs) or departments in order to enable faculty members to avail modern education technology for teaching. In order to boost this activity, MCI has been conducting Faculty Development Programmes through selected Regional Centres, since July 2009. These Centres are located at institutions which have trained manpower in Medical Education Technologies (MET).

MCI has restructured itself, so what are your plans to bring reforms in the regulatory process for better medical education in India?

We want to make regulatory and assessment processes more objective. They should be more transparent and in public domain. We have constituted an academic council to look into this which consists former dean of AIIMS and heads of medical education wings. This is one thing that MCI has done. Secondly, we want to improve quality of education in medical colleges. The quality of medical education in medical colleges is deteriorating and MCI is public eye. So, we have tried to create such centres for training of teachers of colleges in the emerging fields such as tele medicine. We are making the profession attractive again.

Bright students are not coming into medicine. Earlier, medicine was one of the top professions but now, due to various reason students don’t find medicine course charming.

Under graduate seats have increased. Today society needs specialties. Every student who enters into medicine wants to do post graduate. Student is asking himself that why I should invest my career in medicine. Post graduates seats need to be increased. Of course private colleges, capitation fees are the issues and younger students from poor families can’t afford high college fees. Our system is such that students are scared to take loan from banks. We cannot change the system overnight. Most of the brightest students still live in rural areas. We have to create options for them.

We cannot afford to send them cities for these academics.

We should come into the government sector so they may more affordable rather than private sector. Also, we are looking that how can we increase teacher pool.

What needs to be done with medical education to bridge the rural-urban healthcare divide?

This is a serious issue that how we can send doctors in peripheral areas. Our rural healthcare system should be addressed on priority. The rural health infrastructure should be improved.

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case study

The Milind Deora Youth Employability

Initiative The Milind Deora Youth Employability Initiative, is a unique partnership initiative in which Sri Milind Deora, Member of Parliament for South Mumbai constituency, IndiaSkills – a joint venture in vocational training between Manipal Education and City & Guilds, which came together to provide employment opportunities for the youth in a sustainable manner

By Hari Menon, CEO, India Skills

The Background The youth of South Mumbai have been eager, enterprising and energetic in their endeavours but due to their low level of joboriented skills, many of them have been unemployed. Shri MIlind Deora, Member of Parliament of the constituency understood that the youth had potential but severely lacked direction and access to opportunities. He realized that providing employability to these youth would transform their lives. The sentiment found support in stakeholders like IndiaSkills and Manipal Foundation. It was a common realization that the potential of Indian youth can be immense and providing employability will be the ideal way to harness it for development of the society and economy, that lead to the launch of Milind Deora Youth Employability Initiative.

One of the objectives of the initiative has been to provide job-oriented skills for the economically challenged youth, by ensuring that they are up-skilled to meet the industry requirements and provide them with jobs that would guarantee a secure future. The project is first of its kind in India, bringingtogether stakeholders of varied interests and unique advantages to successfully deliver the project. High-quality content of world class standards from City and Guilds that was adapted to Indian retail industry requirements by IndiaSkills.

The content is delivered through Speakwell, one of Mumbai’s leading Spoken English chains and India Skills. Assessment

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One of the objectives of the initiative has been to provide job-oriented skills for the economically challenged youth, by ensuring that they are up-skilled to meet the industry requirements and provide them with jobs that would guarantee a secure future

CASE STUDY

and training is provided by IndiaSkills Placement opportunities have been provided for students by partnership with India’s leading retailers. Unique evaluation programme was developed to map the skill levels of candidates to the available job opportunities – candidates were provided training to close the necessary skills gap.

In order to map the skills of candidates, a unique programme was designed to ascertain the skill level of candidates by including essential criteria including their knowledge and behavioural aspects

The Project IndiaSkills offered industry relevant courses and training methodology that helped a learner get all required skills irrespective of his educational background.

Speakwell, one of Mumbai’s leading spoken

crease in skill level of candidates before and after training was also designed.

english chains, ensured quality training infrastructure and faculty. Irize, a dedicated employment wing of Manipal Education ensured that the successful learners had multiple job options across locations.

The evaluation programme was designed on various factors including knowledge, behavioural aspects and biometric data.

The data collected from pre and post training assessment was further used to provide insights into bridging the demand-supply gap in the industry. Skill levels of candidates were mapped to pertinent job opportunities and students were trained accordingly. Employer feedback suggested need of more similar initiatives to source skilled entry level employee. Quantified in-

Skills Mapping In order to map the skills of candidates so as to check their training needs , a unique programme was designed to ascertain the skill level of candidates by including essential criteria of their knowledge, behavioral aspects etc. This was implemented in pre and post assessment of candidates for ensuring optimal placement.

In order to map industry requirements to generate exact training content for target group, IndiaSkills conducted an exhaustive study of current industry requirements and developed course content with valuable inputs from City and Guilds international qualifications. The challenge in placement was meeting region-specific demands of candidates as most candidates were not willing to relocate. Irize did a two-prong strategy in simultaneously procuring job mandates from Mumbai branches of leading retail partners and sourcing the required candidates. The confluence of the right stakeholders resulted in successful adaptation in any region and any industry sector across India.

Author

Hari Menon CEO, IndiaSkills which has been set up with the aim of redefining skills trainingand certification delivery in India

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INDIRA GANDHI NATIO Maidan Garhi, New Delhi

Admissions

begin in M.Ed. Programme The Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) announceS admissions in Masters in Education (M.Ed.) programme through distance learning mode for January 2012 session.

Prospectus available at all the regional centers and headquarters.

Last date for submission of forms: November 20, 2011.

–

NAL OPEN UNIVERSITY 110068, India, www.ignou.ac.in

Eligibility for admission Bachelor’s in Education (B.Ed.) degree with at least 55 percent marks or equivalent grade on a five point scale from a recognised Indian or foreign university with two years teaching/ professional experience after completion of B.Ed. programme in a government recognised school/ NCTE recognised teacher education/ research institution.

The student handbook and prospectus is available on the payment of Rs.200 in cash or through post by sending in the Demand Draft of Rs.250 drawn in favour of IGNOU, payable in the city where the prospectus is required.

Application forms can also be downloaded from the website www.ignou.ac.in.

policy Matters

Internet as a

Catalyst for Change

Key outcomes of the sixth Internet Governance Forum focusing on Internet access, development, freedom and innovations

By Divya Chawla, digitalLEARNING Bureau The Sixth Annual IGF Meeting was held from 27-30 September 2011 at the United Nations Office at Nairobi (UNON), Kenya. The theme of the meeting was: ‘Internet as a catalyst for change: access, development, freedoms and innovation’.

Accessibility and Diversity of Broadband Internet Access The Internet is increasingly being recognised as one of the key enablers of growth and development. The growing recognition that the Internet is a public good is evident from the fact that a number of countries, starting with Finland in 2009, have made access to broadband Internet a fundamental right. As connectivity becomes an ever-more important determinant of access to development, and as calls for, and concern towards, inclusiveness in the development process grow stronger, it is pertinent to identify and address the key issues affecting connectivity. It is equally important to then address the issue of access and ability to use information – which is currently handicapped in large measure due to literacy and language-related factors. With this objective the Centre for Science Development and Media Studies (CSDMS) organised a workshop on ‘Accessibility and Diversity of Broadband Internet Access’ at the sixth IGF meeting.

Chaired by Sh N Ravi Shanker Additional Secretary, Department of Information Technology, Ministry of Communication and Information Technology, Government of India; the prominent panel members of the workshop included Graciela Saleimi, instituto NUPEF, Brazil; Klaus Stoll, Acting Executive Di-

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rector, Global Knowledge Partnership Foundation; Venkatesh Hariharan, Head of Public Policy and Government Relations, Google India; Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, The Centre for Internet and Society; and Abhishek Singh, Director, Department of Information Technology, Ministry of Information Technology, Government of India.

Discussions Dr Rajeshree Dutta Kumar, Sr Programme Specialist, CSDMS introduced the session theme by highlighting the importance of broadband Internet access. She stated certain key issues that constrain use of broadband including high cost, connectivity and broadband in rural areas, language in which Internet is organised, access issues for illiterates and visually challenged, control of Internet and root servers, net neutrality and compatibility IPv6.

Graciela Saleimi put forth issues related to broadband inter-

policy Matters

net access in Brazil. She said, “Brazil has 12.8 million broadband connections with an average monthly cost of USD 93.

This accounts for 4.5 percent of the monthly per capita income of a Brazilian citizen, which is much higher as compared to the developing countries which have an average monthly spend of 0.5 percent of the per capita income. Half of Brazilian municipalities do not have access to broadband connections, which is a critical issue that the government needs to address.”

Klaus Stoll was of the view that digital divide does not exist as the unavailability of broadband mainly exists in areas where there is no awareness and demand. He highlighted the importance of strategic use of Internet across the world.

Talking about policy related issues, which are critical for Internet access, Venkatesh Hariharan said, “There are investments and networks in pipeline which is good news but the governance of those networks, the rule of law, the processes of law that manage these networks is also very important.”

Another critical issue that hampers the accessibility of internet is copyright laws. Focussing on this, Sunil Abraham said, “A technology solution must be made a legitimate solution, barring all copyright issues, if it offers enough value. We must also look into the patent issues to make it easier for compliance. Free and open source licenses must also be considered for enhancing access.”

Bringing forward the Indian context, Abhishek Singh said, “The government in India is setting up 100,000 kiosks in villages and rural areas, which can provide Internet connectivity in these regions. More than 60 percent of the rural community can access Internet via these kiosks.”

Sh N Ravi Shanker concluded the workshop by highlighting the need for having public investments in making broadband accessible to everyone. “While it is important to drive public investment, it is equally important for the private sector participation to join in the government in the endeavour”, he said.

Open Data: Challenges and Solutions Over 60 UN Member States around the world have now adopted and are actively engaged in implementing public sector information policy frameworks that were first developed by economic regions such as the European Union and the OECD. The workshop,

The growing recognition that the Internet is a public good is evident from the fact that a number of countries have made access to broadband Internet a fundamental right jointly organsied by CSDMS and Retired Sole, addressed the approaches that could lead to the formulation of a global public sector information policy framework for consideration and adoption by the United Nations Member States.

Chaired by Christopher Corbin, Independent Researher, Brighton; the eminent panel included Anne Fitzgerald, Queensland University of Technology from Australia; Wey Ward, Consultant from Hong Kong; Abhishek Singh and Dr Rajeshree Dutta Kumar from India. The panelists debated upon the need for a global policy on public sector information.

Discussions Anne Fitzgerald opined that the World is not ready yet for such a policy. “Looking at the map of e‑readiness or information policy readiness of the UN Member States, I think there are less than half the Governments that have some e‑Government policy in place. Unless you have these basics in place, I believe it will be very difficult to come up with PSI.” On the other hand Abhishek Singh said that there can be no arguments with regard to the need for an open Government policy across the world. He however added that, “But at the same time we have to work out the roadmap towards reaching that goal. We also have to see the individual situations in various countries.” Reflecting similar thoughts, Dr Rajeshree Dutta Kumar added, “Although, there is a strong need for open data, I believe that we should also have a provision for a globally consistent framework”.

So while there were mixed thoughts, the need for an open data policy framework emerged a crucial outcome of the workshopt.

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Tech Focus

Teaching with Portals

can Give You an Edge Teachers of today often grapple with too much of paperwork while also handling crowded classrooms and students with emotional hitches. In the process, they become over-stressed owing to increased pressures in classroom management styles and practices in effective teaching. However, the scenario has been effectively addressed with the help of internet education tools – one of them can be quoted as “education portals”

By Inder Kumar, digital LEARNING Bureau

Though the concept of digital learning is new to the Indian environment of autocratic classroom structures, but the 24x7 portals are rewarding to the teachers as well as to those who are in the domain of public policy and planning functions.

Working on a lesson, an assignment, preparing a multiple choice questionnaire or a case study has never been so easy today with the introduction of these websites. Aiming to suit the fast growing complications in education system, the system of plugged-in education also includes resolving classroom management issues, promoting an effective learning management for schools, colleges, universities and organisations. The so called wired system of education also motivates students, especially those dealing with individual differences and emotional problems.

The interactive portals are quite accommodating for a teacher-led classroom learning process.

Through rich media presentations, the websites facilitate preparation of online tests with free multimedia resources. Besides catering to content sharing for online K-12 community, the search engine helps students for self-

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Tech Focus

paced learning. Moreover, the portals also serve as an online virtual school where parents and students can interact with teachers, get assignments and share educational material.

The portals provide numerous lesson materials for K-12 teachers and their students. They are designed to be delivered in a variety of formats and classroom settings. The lessons are Internet-based and mostly are free to everyone. Each lesson contains a teacher’s version as well as a student’s version which can be used in a variety of ways. Teachers can use as many of the lessons as they would like and can pass on the same to their students, in the way they wish to.

While talking to Vasundhara Vyas , Marketing Head of Education Initiatives (a group that runs education institutions), it was found that the learning tools available online, i.e. Mind Spark, aid teachers in preparing tests, vis-a-vis creating a real life application based questions so that students can relate to their practical life and learn easily. The online software also eases the burden of result preparation, it comes out with diagnostic reports, simplifies the assessment process and also notifies where a student is lacking and what should be done.

Although, online education system is new to mindset of teachers in India, it is being openly welcomed by many in the education sector. Sudhir Kumar, Assistant Professor at Delhi University’s Ramjas College has found the concept very advantageous for learning. “If students learn online prior to attending their regular class , they become clear with the basics, and this, in turn, makes it easy for the teachers to help students understand the complexities,” he says.

Enabling the transfer of skills via computer and network, the concept of internet education encourages web-based learn-

“e- Learning offers coaching at a convenient time, at the comfort of home and is unlike private tuition centres” R S Rawat General Secretary, ASSOCHAM

ing, virtual education opportunities and gaining knowledge with digital collaboration. The content is delivered via the internet, intranet or extranet, audio or video tapes, satellite TV, and CDROM. The content is made approachable with the support of media in the form of text, image, animation, and streaming video and audio.

Chitra Bhatia, VP, Sanako Corporation is of the opinion that with the help of online learning, teachers can adapt to the needs of students, changing curriculum, content and most importantly, maintaining class motivation. “I do not see e-tutorial as a threat to teachers but a teaching aid that helps both teachers and the students learn faster and better. Most of the successful e-learning content in the market today is driven by teachers and customers are ready to pay higher for the same.”

She added that the teacher driven content has various advantages over self driven learning as teachers can adapt learning to the students, they can help the students to manage learning better by helping them in the process of learning which includes - Remembering, Understanding, Applying, Analysing, Evaluating and Creating.

With regard to the future prospects of online learning in India, Bhatia says that online learning is the best option today and for the future as well. It is bound to grow rapidly as we are facing acute shortage of good teachers, physical infrastructure and quality education.

The system of internet education aids in maintaining classroom discipline, motivating work and keeping up relationships with parents. It also helps organise class work, padding insufficient or inadequate teaching materials with supplies and to some extent, rallies around dealing with problems of individual students as well. According to R. S. Rawat, Secretary General of the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM), online learning program offering a comprehensive one-stop-shop for education search, the online education system is an upcoming tool for mobilising online learning through education portals. The technology-based course development and management system is increasingly becoming the pick of the litter of many academicians and students. The concept does not aim to replace teacher-based classrooms but only propagates the idea that learning can be advanced with technological development and can be fun as well.

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15-17 December, 2011 |

Mahatma Mandir, Gandhinagar, Gujarat

“e-Governance to me is easy, effective and efficient governance”

Chief Guest Narendra Modi Hon’ble Chief Minister Government of Gujarat

organisers

exhibitors

www.eINDIA.net.in

Co-organisers

Key Speakers at eINDIA 2011 R Chandrashekhar Secretary, Department of IT Ministry of Communications & IT Government of India

Shankar Aggarwal Additional Secretary Department of IT, Ministry of Communication & IT Government of India

R S Sharma Director General, UIDAI

Maheshwar Sahu Principal Secretary, Industries Government of Gujarat

Hansmukh Adhia Secretary, Education Executive Chairman, Gujarat Knowledge Society Government of Gujarat

Raj Kumar Secretary, Food, Civil Supplies & Consumer Affairs Department, Government of Gujarat

Prof V N Rajasekharan Pillai Vice Chancellor Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU)

Prof Sudhir K Jain, Director, IIT Gandhinagar

Jay Narayan Vyas Minister of Health Government of Gujarat

Introduction eINDIA 2011, the seventh edition of India’s largest ICT event, is being convened from 15-17 December, 2011 at Mahatma Mandir, Gandhinagar, Gujarat (www.eINDIA.net.in). The event is being organised by Department of Science and Technology, Government of Gujarat, and Gujarat Infomatics Limited, along with Center for Science, Development and Media Studies (CSDMS) and Elets Technomedia Pvt. Ltd. The State of Gujarat has emerged as a frontline State in the implementation of e-governance policies and projects and setting up of key infrastructure for eGovernance.

Gujarat Government has been keenly focusing on growth and development of new and emerging technology areas. It has been increasingly using the ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) to offer citizen based service as per convenient location with an initiative to improve the reach, make services more transparent and reduce response time with reducing costs.

In this background, the organizers of eINDIA2011 saw the State of Gujarat as the ideal platform to host this premier ICT event. It is also a privilege to share that eINDIA2011 is being hosted by the Government of Gujarat, and is co-organised by Department of Information Technology, Ministry of Communications & IT, Government of India.

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Meet & Network with key decision makers & experts, bureaucrats & policy makers leaders & stakeholders, service providers & IT vendors, telecom vendors & consulting firms, ICT entreprenuers & NGOs on innovative e-Gov implementations government agencies in the domain of ICT for Governance, Healthcare & Education Engage with colleagues and experts handling similar ICT projects, dealing with transformation and GPR challenges, working on automation of back office processes and integration.

Benefit from extensive & in-depth conference sessions on more than 50 thematic areas in the field of e-Governance, e-Learning, eHealth, eAgriculture and Telecentre.

Witness innovative solutions and cutting edge developments in ICT at eINDIA expo.

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sponsorship & expo Puneet Kathait, puneet@elets.in, +91-8860635833 Fahim Ul Haque, fahim@elets.in , +91 8860651632 Rakesh Ranjan, rakesh@elets.in, +91 8860651635

higher education

17-18 September 2011

ERP Mission Workshop at JMI

Taking Technology Closer to Education A two-day Workshop on ‘ERP Mission’ was organised by the FTK-Centre for Information Technology, Jamia Millia Islamia on September 17-18, 2011. The objective of the workshop was to increase the awareness amongst the higher educational institutions about the development of various Open Source ERP modules for better administrative functioning of the institutions

By Z H Khan, Director, FTK-CIT, Jamia Millia Islamia

A two-day Workshop on ‘ERP Mission’ was organised by the FTK-Centre for Information Technology, Jamia Millia Islamia on September 17-18, 2011. Prof. Zahid H Khan, Honorary Director, FTK-Centre for Information Technology delivered the welcome address and introduced the participants to the objectives of the workshop. In his welcome address, Prof. Khan emphasised the importance of active participation of the developers, administrators and end-users for successful implementation of ERP systems in educational institutions. The workshop was inaugurated by Mr. T.A. Khan, Deputy Director General, National Informatics Centre in the presence of the University Pro-Vice-Chancellor Prof. S.M. Rashid. Mr. Khan appreciated the timely initiative of the NMEICT and the collaborative model for ERP system development. Drawing upon his rich technical experiences Mr. Khan asked the academic and technical communities to be ready for addressing the iterative evolution challenges thrown by the ERP system. Dr Ravi Gupta, CEO, Elets Technomedia Pvt. Ltd was the Guest of Honour.

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While applauding the Open Source methodology chosen for development, Dr Gupta emphasised the need for educational institutions to adapt to the changing technological environment to satisfy the requirements of the 21st century generation. Prof. SM Rashid, the Pro Vice-Chancellor, Jamia Millia Islamia while referring to the ‘Best ICT Enabled institution of Higher Learning’ award bagged by the FTK-Centre For Information Technology applauded the efforts of Prof. ZH Khan, Director CIT for making it amongst one of the most progressive IT centres in the Universities.

Objective The objective of the workshop was to increase the awareness amongst the higher educational institutions about the development of various Open Source ERP modules under the INR 19.36 crores ERP Mission project sanctioned by the National Mission on Higher Education through ICT, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India. The event provided a useful platform to the developers, university administrators, faculty members and ICT professionals for sharing their ideas on development and implementation of ERP modules in universities and educational institutions.

The Workshop Proceedings During the technical sessions of the workshop, teams from Aligarh Muslim University, Amrita University, Dayalbagh Educational

higher education

Institute, IGNOU, Jamia Millia Islamia and SMVDU Jammu demonstrated their respective ERP modules. Dr. S. Kazim Naqvi, Workshop Convener, introduced the delegates to the “ERP Mission” project, its objectives, methodology and possibilities of participation of other institutions.

Raghu Raman, the Principal Investigator (PI) from Amrita Vishwa Vidyapetham, Coimbatore demonstrated the Grants Management System and Faculty Expertise System developed by their team. The team from Jamia Millia Islamia made presentation on the ‘Purchase and Inventory Control Module (PICO)’ module. Prof. Uma Kanjilal from IGNOU showcased the aspects of EPortfolio. The module will be useful for students as well as faculty members to maintain an online archive of their academic, research and other types work. The team from Dayalbagh Educational Institute demonstrated the features of ‘Course Management’, ‘Online Admissions’, ‘Online OMR Evaluation System’, ‘Project Management’ and ‘Ondemad Examination’ modules developed by their team.

Summet Gupta from SMVDU demonstrated the ‘Payroll and Tax Management System’. The AMU team demonstrated the ‘Library Management System (LibMS)’. Throughout all the sessions, the participants provided useful inputs on improving the utility of the modules.

On the second day of the programme, the National Coordinator of the ERP Mission project Prof. YN Singh, from IIT Kanpur, also addressed the participants and explained the overall architecture of the system and future work. His team also demonstrated the Brihaspati-3 LMS and BrihasptiSync which is a facility for conducting online classes. He urged the entire academic and technical fraternity working for educational institutions to come forward and volunteer in meeting out the challenges thrown by this important project.

The two- day workshop session concluded with an incredible amount of knowledge sharing exercise and provided useful insights into the working of ERP modules for higher education administrators.

Author

FAQs on the ERP MISSION What is ERP? ERP stands for Enterprise Resource Planning. It is a software that helps organisations automate their processes in an integrated manner.

What is ERP Mission Project?

ERP Mission is a 19-crore project sanctioned by the National Mission on Education through ICT, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India. The chief coordinating agency is IIT Kanpur along with the following other partners: 1. Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh 2. Amritha Vishwavidya Peetham, Coimbatore 3. Dayabagh Educational Institute, Agra 4. IIT Roorkee 5. Indira Gandhi National Open University, Delhi 6. Jamia Millia Islamia, Delhi 7. NIT Hamirpur 8. SMVDU, Jammu What are the objectives of the ERP Mission Project? The objectives of ERP Mission project are as follows: •

To develop an Open Source ERP System for educational institutions

•

To help educational and research institutions implement ERP systems in a

•

To promote collaborative development efforts

cost effective way

Why ERP needs to be developed?

Prof Z H Khan Director, FTK-Centre for Information Technology, Jamia Millia Islamia (A Central University), New Delhi

•

To automate routine transactions in the organisation. This would help achive

•

To enable support for data backed decision making

•

To force standards in process implementation across the University. For

efficiency, economy and transparency in the organisation

example: Admissions rule may be enforced uniformly across the University

november / 2011 www.digitallearning.in

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news - higher education

AICTE to implement NVEQF for technical education Ministry of Human Resource Development has announced National Vocational Education Qualification Framework (NVEQF) programme for polytechnic and engineering colleges to transform Indian workforce to become knowledgeable, skilled and adaptable to the demands of new labor market.

Kapil Sibal, Minister of Human Resource development said , “ I am pleased to note that AICTE is planning to implement the NVEQF at the post-secondary level through the medium of Polytechnics and engineering colleges and has prepared curriculum content in a variety of skills with industry participation.”

The unique part of the vocational framework is that it will be integrated with mainstream education and thus provide students multi-level entry and exit options to enable them to seek employment after class XII. Any student under NVEQF can be sure that the institution is government authorised and nationally accredited and that the degree and other qualifications are genuine, said AICTE chairman S S Mantha.

The framework would link schools, vocational and university education qualifications into one national system. National Skill Development Council is in the process of launching the ‘national occupational standards’ supporting NVEQF.

Shiv Nadar University launched at Greater Noida The Shiv Nadar Foundation has announced the launch of the Shiv Nadar University (SNU) at Dadri, Greater Noida in the National Capital Region.

The Shiv Nadar University announced the launch of the School of Social Sciences & Humanities for the academic session 2012-13 and also the launch of its first Research Centre in Mathematics & Information Technology. The Research Centre will function as a centre for research collaboration with leading global institutions through the application of Mathematics and Information Technology. The University plans to launch the School of Business, the School of Communication and the School of Education in the near future. The University also announced the appointment of Dr M Gopal as Director of the School of Engineering and Dr Shubhashis Gangopadhyay as Director of the School of Social Sciences & Humanities.

Texas Instruments, CORE Education join hands for STEMpower With the launch of Texas Instruments (TI) Education Technology business in India, TI and CORE Education and Technologies Ltd (CORE) has announced that they are joining forces to bring a new way of teaching and learning math and science to middle and secondary schools throughout India. The joint effort combines TI’s education technology solution with CORE’s content, teacher education and support to form one integrated solution called STEMpower. Through STEMpower, TI and CORE will address teaching, learning and assessment needs in the classroom, in the lab, and in the real world.

Ceeco launches ELearn’s Intelliclass eLearning Suite With a vast experience in innovative technology solutions, ELearn offers a revolutionary concept combining the best ICT training tools, Smart School K-12 content and assessments. ELearn’s Intelliclass -an unmatched e-learning suite provides comprehensive top of the line hardware and software ICT solution for next generation classrooms.

Intelliclass offers implementation of technology-enabled classrooms equipped with the best infrastructure including Digi-Annotate (a portable interactive device), 88 inches Projection Board, High Resolution WXGA Projector, Dual Core PC, UPS and a compact and powerful eduVOX Audio System.

The high definition Smart School 3D and mapped content delivers in depth explanation of the latest CBSE Curriculum. The beautifully designed and thoughtfully constructed Intelliclass k-12 content, reviewed by education industry experts will definitely improve the student’s concentration in the class and help them learn the fun way. With the latest e-learning technology the focus is on a holistic and balanced education. Intelliclass e-learning solutions not only offer excellent academics but also include a range of extra-curricular activities thus encouraging the students to realise their full potential. The curriculum is regularly updated with a huge array of practice exercises, comprehensive quizzes and creative modules.

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Product Launch

Next Generation of MimioStudio Software and DYMO|Mimio Hindi Website

Newest version of integrated software connects entire classroom with enhanced tools and personalisation DYMO/Mimio has launched the MimioStudio 8.0.1 software, the newest generation of the software, which enables greater connectivity and flexibility to classrooms. The MimioClassroom product suite is a fully integrated suite of interactive teaching technologies that transforms any dry-erase board into a fully-interactive whiteboard, eliminating unnecessary installation costs and providing teachers with an intuitive classroom tool.

MimioStudio8.0.1 is an update to the already popular MimioStudio 8.0 software that powers the Mimio Classroom product suite and offers an expanded toolset that provides more flexibility for teachers to develop engaging interactive lessons for students of all grade and skill levels.

This is a truly universal solution, being compatible with Windows, Macintosh and Linux operating systems and now available in 31 languages. This means MimioStudio 8.0.1 will be used in classrooms all over the world – from India to Bulgaria.

“MimioStudio 8.0.1 software improves upon our awardwinning MimioStudio 7 software, which was recently named a winner in the prestigious CODiE award for excellence in software development,” said Nitin Joshi, India Sales Manager for DYMO/Mimio.

“Our software engineering team spent countless man hours collecting feedback from teachers around the world to refine and enhance the MimioStudio software. We are pleased to offer teachers tools that let them produce even more creative interactive lessons for use with MimioClassroom products.”

MimioStudio 8.0.1 software seamlessly integrates with the MimioClassroom suite and can be used with the MimioTeachTM interactive system, which converts any dry erase board into a fully-interactive whiteboard. It can also be used with any combination of elements from the product suite like MimioVoteTM assessment system, MimioViewTM document camera, MimioPadTM wireless tablet and MimioCaptureTM ink recording system, which facilitate teachers to create interactive lessons with easy-to-use technology.

New MimioStudio 8.0.1 software enhancements include: • Expanded MimioVote question customisation, which adds greater functionality to creating and conducting tests • Brush pen stylised writing that processes Asian calligraphy and stylised writing • Enhanced drawing tools that transform freehand shapes into perfect shapes, which can be filled, resized and recoloured • Students and teachers can use the new screen clipping option to draw around any image and paste it into lessons • A customizable colour palette and colour picker tool that allows teachers to create and save their own personal set of colours for reuse • Optimised toolbar and keyboard shortcuts Visit mimio.dymo.com to download for FREE right now and get the latest news about DYMO/Mimio at our Hindi website!

For more information on DYMO/Mimio ITT, please call Nitin Joshi on +91-120-2488809 or email at mimioinquiry@mimio.comor visit mimio.dymo.com/C7e ©2011 DYMO, a Newell Rubbermaid company

november / 2011 www.digitallearning.in

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corporate diary

“Higher Education Needs Scalable Solutions Like Cloud Computing” In conversation with Sarath Sura - Managing Director and Vijay Pasupulati, Executive Vice President, Winzest, Pragya Gupta talks on how eLearning in engineering domain has been expanding its wings with their plans and strategy for Indian market How do you see engineering education and management education evolving in India? How does Internet driven learning act as a pedagogic tool to enhance the learner’s motivation, knowledge assimilation and retention?

Sarath Sura: Engineering and Management Education has seen a tremendous amount of growth since the opening up of the Indian economy in the early 90s.

However, this mushrooming growth is bringing about a decline in the quality of education. This is very apparent especially in the large number of engineering colleges where they are facing many challenges including lack of adequate number of qualified faculty, lack of infrastructure and limited financial resources. This is leading to low employability among students where only 25 percent of the engineering graduates are employable as per the NASSCOM-McKinsey report. As demand for quality graduates will continue to grow significantly, the higher education system is also bound to grow rapidly. However, this future growth in capacity should come with innovative solutions where quality of education should not suffer.

We foresee internet driven teaching-learning solutions playing a key role in the future of higher education. The reasons for their success would be their reach, efficiency, scalability and affordability. These solutions will also bring in a learner centric approach where the focus would be on enhancing learning outcomes. For example, a class of 60 engineering students would have a heterogeneous learning ability. The teaching pace in the classroom could be too fast for a weaker student and too slow for a smarter student. A teacher cannot alter the teaching pace in the classroom to address the needs for each student. In such a case, a digital learning solution can address the learning needs in a self-paced, non-threatening and convenient environment.

Sarath Sura Managing Director

Tell us about the genesis of the company in the e-learning domain?

Vijay Pasupulati Executive Vice President Winzest

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Vijay Pasupulati: Winzest is a start-up company and like all start-ups we were looking to identify a market need and an appropriate solution to address that need. Also the solution needs to be differentiated, sustainable and scalable. In this process we identified the need for a solution that helps arrest the declining quality of higher education while supporting the required growth for capacity building.

India has the largest school-going population in the world. This coupled with the objective to increase Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) in higher education is putting immense pressure to augment capacity in higher education. However, the challenge is to ensure quality with this growth. In this context we needed a solution that brings together academic depth, sound instructional design and good technology. This was the genesis of our e-learning product LearningWare. We also believe

corporate diary

that only through Internet-driven e-learning solutions this need can be effectively addressed in a scalable and affordable way.

LearningWare is the first product from Winzest in the higher education space and it provides a holistic solution to enhance the teaching-learning process in the engineering education system. Through LearningWare, users get access to high quality learning content mapped to their specific university curricula.

The content is hosted over the cloud servers and delivered over a virtual learning environment. This ensures that the college doesn’t have to invest in servers. The interactive and graphical nature of the content ensures a powerful learning experience for the learner or student. The content offered in LearningWare can be accessed by the student or the faculty anywhere and the product is continuously improved based on the feedback received from the users.

What is the diverse range of solutions being offered by Winzest in education sector?

Sarath Sura: In Winzest our focus is to offer solutions in the post-secondary education space. Towards this we have launched LearningWare in June 2011 that targets the engineering education segment. We are also in the process of launching more comprehensive university solutions with enhanced assessment tools, upgraded reporting and a collaborative environment.

We would soon extend our LearningWareoffering to other areas of higher education including Management and Pharmacy.

What is your outreach strategy for ‘LearningWare’?

Vijay Pasupulati: The key beneficiaries of LearningWare are the stakeholders in the engineering education ecosystem including students, faculty and college management. As LearningWare is an innovative concept, we initially focus on colleges and universities that are considered “early adopters” of such innovative solutions. These colleges are typically progressive in nature and open to adopting innovative solutions.

LearningWare being an online product, we intend to use internet as the driving force behind our outreach programs. This includes leveraging the social media and online marketing campaigns. We are also exploring possibilities of leveraging the strengths of the other outreach channels. In addition we also focus on harnessing the strength of our sales force which constantly engages with institutions in promoting our concept of e-learning.

Adoption of cloud computing in higher education in India is ever increasing. How can cloud change the teaching-learning process?

Sarath Sura: Higher education needs scalable solutions like those provided by cloud computing. Cloud based solutions are centralised in nature and delivered over the internet to the users. Cloud based solutions like LearningWare can significantly help in enhancing the teaching-learning process as they help share best practices across users, provide constantly updated content and provide an environment where knowledge and teaching-learning tools are available on-demand. Cloud solu-

tions are designed for scale and shared across a large pool of users. This in turn leverage economies of scale and ensure affordable solutions to the users.

Technology has been playing and instrumental role in new age assessment systems but what about recommendations and guidance for students?

Vijay Pasupulati: Most technology-enabled learning management systems offer good assessment tools. However, we believe assessment systems should also provide instant feedback, learning analysis and recommendation for future learning actions. These are the differentiating factors we are building into LearningWare‘s assessment engine. For example, we

The primary challenge in adoption of technology in education may be the faculty mindset. While some faculty is open to adopting new technologies, most faculty have a resistance to such change provide instant feedback on assessments which include why a question is right or wrong with relevant explanation. We also provide analysis on students learning patterns and abilities.

What are your views on the extent of ICT integration in higher education across India?

Sarath Sura: ICT integration is still very limited in most of thehigher education institutions, especially those that are located in rural areas. Even in institutions where ICT was available, there was some inhibition for faculty to use it. Lack of good internet connectivity is another challenge faced by many institutions.

However, we believe ICT integration will rapidly improve over the next few years due to increased awareness, better infrastructure and availability of relevant ICT tools. Government of India has initiated several programs to encourage ICT usage in education.

The most effective government programs have been those that help build primary infrastructure, provide supporting regulatory framework and fund technology-enabled solutions.

What are the key challenges in adoption of technologies in education?

Vijay Pasupulati: The primary challenge in adoption of technology in education is the faculty mindset. While some faculty may be open to adopting new technologies, most faculty have a resistance to such change. They perceive technology driven solutions as an intrusion in their turf instead of seeing them as enablers to enhance the existing systems. In addition, infrastructure remains a challenge with institutions. The future of technology in education will be driven by the internet and availability of good bandwidth will be important.

november / 2011 www.digitallearning.in

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Building capacity | Connecting people | serving citizens Driving Economy | breaking barriers

1-3 December 2011

Bangabandhu International Conference Center, Dhaka, Bangladesh

organisers

co-organisers

www.e-asia.org a2i programme

in association with

Bangladesh Association of Call Center & Outsourcing

partner publicationS

easia 2011 awards The eASiA 2011 Awards have been instituted with the primary aim of felicitating and acknowledging unique and innovative initiatives in the use of Information and Communication Technology for Development (ICT4D).

Inviting nominations from individual participants, government organisations, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), private institutions and enterprise who have transformed social development opportunities into sustainable social enterprises through innovative use of ICTs.

eASIA 2011 Awards categories Track: Building Capacity 1. Best ICT initiative in classrooms 2. Best ICT-enabled teacher training initiative 3. Best open and distance learning program 4. Best ICT initiative for education administration and governance 5. Best innovation in educational content Track: Connecting people 1. Best affordable initiative for rural connectivity 2. Best Value Added Service (VAS) through mobile 3. Best telecentre/Citizen Access Centre (CAC) initiative 4. Best business model for localised application/content Track: Serving Citizens 1. Best ICT initiative in health care 2. Best ICT initiative in agriculture 3. Best ICT initiative climate change and disaster management 4. Best ICT initiative in land management 5. Best co-creation in public service delivery 6. Best govt. agency/ministry providing e-services to citizens

Track: Driving Economy 1. Best employment creation initiative 2. Best initiative in creating enabling environment in ICT 3. Best financial inclusion initiative using ICT 4. Best PPP initiative in ICT 5. Best ICT initiative boosting business productivity Award will be given under Jury Choice Nominations will be screened by an eminent panel of jury members, who will then choose the best project from each category.

Nomination Forms are available online www.e-asia.org/awards Last Date for submission of Nomination – 22 October 2011 Awards to be announced at the eASiA 2011 venue from 1-3 December, 2011 at Bangabandhu International Conference Centre, Dhaka, Bangladesh Visit www.e-asia.org for more details For Further Information Contact: Ankita Verma, ankita@csdms.in, +91 8860651646

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lle y Exce ising Technolog n g o & Rec n atio Innov .org -asia ds@e awar

ip sorshon n o p S hibiti & Ex uiries Enq g sia.or -a ip@e sorsh spon

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case study

Science vs Arts

Bridging the

Divide Inspiration & arguments for integrating arts & science teaching

The case study presents a sample project for middle school students, through which their critical thinking as well as creative thinking will be developed simultaneously. In carrying out the project the students will be compelled to think logically and laterally - both at the same time. They will make their own discoveries through open ended experiments and they will apply their discoveries in a crafts workshop to create working models or pieces of installation art. The sample project is based on Archimedes Principle and can be adapted for classes VI, VII or VIII

By Subha Das Mollick, Secretary, Bichitra Pathshala editorial@elets.in Science, in conjunction with mathematics, is considered to be intellectually most challenging and therefore pedagogically most demanding. When NCERT first began developing text books, their prime focus was on science books – books that would generate a true understanding of the principles of science and challenge the critical thinking of the student. A science student is expected to have a logical bend of mind and a heightened analytical ability along with willingness to put in hours of hard work.

On the other hand, art education comes low down in the priority list in an academic curriculum. In most cases, there is no curriculum for the arts – that is, the fine arts and the performing arts. In some progressive schools, special slots are created in the academic calendar for art programmes, but art is not con-

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sidered to be an essential component in a child’s education.

There are no seminars or conferences on how best to teach art or the contribution of art in a child’s mental make up. Art classes are taken as classes for relaxation – breathing spaces in an otherwise watertight time table.

Can we conceive something different from this existing scenario? Can the hands on experimentations in science begin in lower classes? Can the excitement of discovery be brought back into the learning of science? A unique workshop called Initiating Responses tried to address some of these questions.

A workshop with one foot in science and the other in arts To spark off creative thinking among the participants, a film called “How Things Work” was screened. The film was a

case study

the integration of arts and science. One such chosen topic may be ‘Archimedes Principle.’ ‘Archimedes Principle’ offers diverse possibilities of conducting easy to do and safe experiments with simple household objects, throwaway material and junk. The experiments can be designed for different levels of students from class VI to class VIII. Plans for carrying out an exciting project on ‘Archimedes Principle’

A musical instrument that makes cacophonic noise

breathtaking depiction of a trajectory of chain reactions – a tire rolled because a sack hit it, the table upturned because the tire hit it, the water fell because the table upturned, the reaction started because the water fell, the fire was lit because a reaction was sparked off and on and on and on.

The children worked in five groups. In each group two young artists guided the activities of the children. Every project conceived and executed at this workshop was an exploration of a set of scientific principles towards an aesthetic end. There was a playful subversion at work in every project, which the participants developed in right earnest. The participants were not under pressure to create something useful or to prove a foregone conclusion all over again. They did not know what would emerge at the end of five days. The five groups worked on five different ideas. One group devised a TV that ran by the power of a bicycle, another group made installation art with shimmering curtains that slowly turned in the convection currents rising from the flames, a third group made rockets in their project, ‘Finding Out God’ and yet another group made bizarre musical instruments that gave out cacophonic noise. On the evening of the fifth day, the works of the children were exhibited in an open studio. The children performed, sang and shouted to entice the visitors into their activity.

Role of film clippings Appropriately selected film clippings can work wonders in opening the minds of the children. At a workshop on simple machines taken by this author, a clipping from Home Alone was shown to drive home the point that we become inventive when driven against the wall. After this, the children were asked to shortlist some problems in their daily life and find solutions to these problems using simple machines. The children came up with drawings of very interesting perfectly workable contraptions.

Executing the integration: A proposed project Recommended template for integrating arts and science in middle school curriculum Interested schools can select two topics from the existing science curriculum – one for each semester, to experiment with

Session 1: Triggering curiosity and imagination A sure shot way of triggering excitement on the topic is to show an appropriate movie clipping and generate a discussion. A movie clipping that can work very well to introduce Archimedes Principle, is the animation film.

Once the basic concept is mooted in the minds of the students and their curiosity is aroused, one can come down to doing some quantitative tests and establish the principle on the firm ground of observation and experimentation.

The fundamental experiment to demonstrate Archimedes Principle is by measuring the volume of overflowing water when different objects are floated in a jar filled upto the brim.

One has to devise a simple mechanism to collect the overflowing water neatly into a beaker, without spilling any water.

Through this demonstration the children will find that the volume of water displaced by all floating objects is exactly equal

Appropriately selected film clippings can work wonders in opening the minds of the children

to their weight. This will help the children to arrive at ‘Archimedes Principle.’ They can further verify the principle by taking regular solids like cubes or cuboids or spheres and cylinders made of metals and measuring their loss of weight when fully immersed (using a spring balance). The loss of weight will turn out to be exactly equal to the volumes of the solids.

Session 2: Trying out hands on Next day, the children may be taken to a workshop where they will perform freewheeling experiments on Archimedes Principle and come up with their own findings. Objects like small plastic caps, small metallic caps, nails and pins, pieces of thermocol and cork, aluminium foils, tubs of water, pipes and droppers, simple balances, paper to make paper boats, boxes of plasticine etc can be given to them so that they can conduct their own experiments and arrive at their own conclusions.

Open ended experiments based on the same principle For a class of 30 students, six corners may be created in the craft room. Each corner will be given a name and will have

november / 2011 www.digitallearning.in

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case study

Keeping meticulous records All the experiments and their results will be recorded with the accompaniment of colourful drawings, graphics, photographs taken with simple digital cameras and archived. One member in each group may be asked to do the photo documentation. He/she should keep a photographic record of every step of the group‟s experiment. However, at least a week has to be given for writing the record. In the subsequent years, the experiments conducted may be slightly different, yielding a different set of results.

Session 3: Probing deeper Drawings of these experiments can be drawn A curtain of spirals shimmering in convection currents on the board and the students can be asked to guess the results by applying their already acquired knowledge. Some of the thought experiments may be designed with the Archimedes sphere, some may be designed with melting ice and some others may be designed with ships and boats. If time permits, one may do some thought experiments and calculations with hot air balloons and gas balloons too. This will bring them back to the discussion on UP that they had in session 1.

Session 4: The real fun begins now In the second craft class, the students may once again work in groups and design floating sculpture using throwaway objects like empty plastic bottles, glass bottles, wires and rods, pipes, plastic bags, aluminium foils and anything they can lay one set of objects. Each corner will be made equally colourful their hands on. Each group’s sculpture should be unique. The and attractive. In each corner a set of questions will be kept to groups may not finish the sculpture in one double period, they guide the thinking and activities of the students. The question may take upto three periods to finish and embellish their remay even be embedded in a story displayed in some of the spective sculpture corners. This will give a direction to the students’ exploration and guide them towards making accurate scientific observaSession 5: An open invitation to all tions.

All the hard work, brainstorming, failures and ultimate successes will be eventually displayed in a grand exhibition in the final sesLearning the methods of science sion of the project. Every sculpture will be given a name and the At least two students in each group will be asked to note down names of the group members will be displayed beside every the observations meticulously. A class like this should be at masterpiece. Each masterpiece will be a testimony of how obleast two periods long. The second period may be spent in jects of everyday use can be used to create works of art. sharing the discoveries of the six groups. Each group will give a presentation cum demonstration of their findings and the Author method they followed in arriving at their finding. The teachers – both the science teacher and the craft teacher will listen carefully to the presentations and ask specific questions.

Through this exercise the students will realize the basic values of good science - the need for accurate observations, of Subha Daas Mallick developing a rigorous method and the importance of replicaSubha Das Mollick is presently the bility of experiments to arrive at the same results every time.

Secretary of Bichitra Pathshala-an organisation that promotes the use of Thus, instead of making all the students mechanically do a pre movies and media as pedagogical tools given experiment with known results, each group is encouraged to devise its own experiment and arrive at its own result.

Students will realize the basic values of good science - the need for accurate observations, of developing a rigorous method and the importance of replicability of experiments

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Established in the year 2003, Elets Technomedia is a premier media and knowledge management company that focuses on captivating and reaching out to the masses by effectively communicating the insights on ICT through conferences and a series of well-researched and well-documented publications.

Our mandate is to provide effective information on latest development in different ICT tools, techniques and their applications across governance, education and health through premier print publications, online portals and premier events, seminars, conferences and summits.

Elets provides an unmatched versatility for working with multiple partners and consultants to mutually share knowledge. Our vision is to provide effective information on latest development in different ICT tools, techniques and their applications across various verticals with focused reference to governance, education and health.

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The incumbent should be self motivated and have profit centered approach towards business and maintaining client relations.

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NEWS - HIGHER EDUCATION

TOEFL Test Score equivalencies for visas in Australia Following an approval by the Chris Bowen MP, Minister for Immigration and Citizenship of the TOEFL test for student visas in May 2011, the Minister has now accepted the test score equivalencies identified by ETS research for the TOEFL test when compared to International English Language Testing System (IELT) scores.The new score equivalencies will likely come into effect on November 5, 2011.

“We are delighted that the Minister has agreed to the equivalency scores recommended by Educational Testing Service (ETS) for the TOEFL test as an alternative English language test for student visa purposes,” says David Hunt, Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of ETS’s Global Division.

“ETS recognizes the importance for both the Australian government and test takers in establishing reliable equivalencies between TOEFL scores and the IELTS academic scores currently in use for student visa regulations. ETS undertook transparent research with objective, data-based results to provide the Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC) with the most comprehensive and up-to-date information available on the equivalencies between the two tests,” Hunt explains.

QAI tie up with IBM Career Education QAI, a consulting and workforce development organization has announced that it is working with IBM’s Career Education to help create skilled workforce in Software Testing.

The co-designed programs by QAI and IBM Career Education will be offered on campus across India, as a blended learning program supported by world class courseware and internationally certified faculty members. The co-branded Certificate and Diploma Programs in Software Testing are aimed at offering a cost-effective skill-building program to students that aligns with industry needs and also encourages adoption by academia. Both Diploma and Certificate courses will be offered, accompanied by real world projects.

For students, this collaboration presents an opportunity to gain from the tacit knowledge and experience of the best industry practitioners and helps them acquire industry ready skills that will enhance their job prospects and give them the edge in their career.

Over the years, there has been a widening demand-supply gap for the appropriately skilled, ready to deploy workforce in India. The Indian market itself requires 35,000 testers approximately to bridge the gap which is projected to increase to almost 1, 65,000 in the year 2013.

IGNOU, Intel conduct session on usage of ICT in Education In a bid to create awareness, share ideas and experiences on the use of ICT in Education amongst key policy and government officials, academia and research industry, IGNOU’s Distance Education Programme- Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (DEPSSA) and Intel Corporation and civil society stakeholders organized a consultative session.

While inaugurating a consultative session on the use of ICT in Educational systems and policies at the campus in the capital, Prof. V. N. Rajasekharan Pillai, VC, Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) said, “We all have considered, formulated and implemented national and organizational policies, strategies and action plans relating to ICTs. There are priority issues faced by every one of us in becoming knowledge societies which focus on information and technology. But due to the dynamic environment, the challenges are becoming more acute and intense. This workshop shall explore such opportunities and priorities for deriving optimum benefits from ICTs as developmental tools in education.”

“Given the rapid pace at which the world is changing there is a need for our education systems to empower the next generation of learners to become productive and capable citizens of tomorrow. We are glad to be partnering with IGNOU and other key stakeholders from the central and state governments as well as Academia on this path of Education Transformation,” said Ashutosh Chadha, Director- Corporate Affairs Group, Intel South Asia during the session.

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CM to distribute laptops in Assam Tarun Gogoi, Chief Minister, Assam has announced computers and laptops for school students. Computers would be given to those students who secure 50 per cent marks in school board examinations from next year.

While addressing the Anundoram Barooah Award 2011 he said that government has all along given thrust to education because this alone can solve problems of illiteracy, poverty and unemployment.

Kalinga Institute inks MoU Zee Learn to set up Mount Ltera Zee with Intel Technology Schools The Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences (KISS) and Intel Technology India Private Limited have signed a MoU for promotion of literacy among tribal youth and out-of-school children, sustainable development practices among teachers and innovation among students.

Zee Learn Ltd’s K-12 vertical is targeting 400-500 schools across the country in 5-7 years under the Mount Litera Zee School banner. The schools will be set up largely through the franchisee route while a considerable number will be management contracts and owned and operated institutions.

The MoU intends to promote literacy among tribal youth and out-of-school children through the Intel Learn Programme with a hands-on approach to ICT learning for under-served children in the age group 8-16.

There are currently 42 operational schools with another 70 in the pipeline.

Next year Zee Learn will add 24 schools followed by 35 more the year after.

Sumeet Mehta, CEO, Zee Learn stated that in terms of signing the projects, we should cross 100 schools by next month. The plan is to add 30-40 schools every year under franchise system.

Tree House Education & Accessories Ltd inducts in BSE Small Cap Index Tree House Education and Accessories Limited, a company providing pre-school and K-12 educational services in India is now included in the BSE Small Cap Index post the latest quarterly review.

As of October 13, 2011, the scrip closed the day at Rs. 176.5 on the BSE. The scrip has posted a consistent increase over the Issue Price of Rs. 129 per share for retail investors and Rs. 135 per share for HNIs/ Institutional investors. From Friday, August 26, 2011; the equity shares of Tree House Education & Accessories Limited were listed and admitted to dealings on the Exchange in the list of ‘B’ Group of Securities.

Tree House Education & Accessories Ltd (THEAL) is the self-operated preschool education provider in India. The Company currently has 230 pre-schools of which 155 preschools are self-operated. The Company also provides school management service to 12 K-12 schools. The company currently employs approximately 835 teachers in its pre-schools.

Kapil Sibal calls for sustained drive for awareness on RTE “There is a need for a sustained campaign to create awareness in every school, among those who need to be brought into school and among those who implement the Right to Education Act as to the various provisions of this Act,” stated

by Shri Kapil Sibal, Union Minister for Human Resource Development at a meeting of State Education Ministers on the subject of community mobilization and public awareness for Right to Education (RTE). Shri Sibal expressed confidence that he would get support from the State Governments in this effort. Shri Sibal underlined that the Central and the State Government have to work together so that RTE does not falter.

Sibal outlined some of the work undertaken in the RTE in the country. Stating that 20 States have notified rules, he pointed out that in states which have not done, so it is the children who are suffering. He has also said that the teachers’ eligibility test has been undertaken and eight years academic cycle has been brought in by the states. But he emphasised on the continuing need for the Government and the civil society to carry the message that education is a right to all people. The community mobilization and public awareness programme for RTE will commence from 11th November wherein a national event will be held in Nuh in Mewat in Haryana on 11th November. Similarly, events are expected to be held in every state and district of the country on that day.

november / 2011 www.digitallearning.in

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expert corner

A Solution Whose Time has Come

e-Teaching can be applied, not just to paediatric cardiology and radiology as has been successfully done in India, but to all branches of medical specialists in India

By Dr Arjun Kalyanpur, Chief Radiologist and CEO of Teleradiology Solutions

Although the number of medical colleges in the country has been increasing steadily and currently stands at 260, unfortunately there is an acute shortage of teaching manpower in the existing medical colleges. This shortage is in the region of 20–25 percent in most departments and as high as 33 percent in some departments, based on data published in the National Medical Journal of India. The shortages are particularly acute at the postgraduate level. Hence, while medical school training in India is phenomenal and world renowned in quality, speciality and super speciality training in India has been the purview of a limited number of institutions in India.

Figure 1. Live interactive e-teaching in Pediatric Cardiology by Dr Sunita Maheshwari The problems in the field of super speciality training in India tween the student and teacher and thus, although available, are several. The number of trainers i.e. specialists interested they do not have a desired impact. in teaching is limited in number. Even if the trainers would like An ideal e-learning platform would allow student teacher into focus on training, the amount of energy and time needed teraction. Such a platform should be easy to use since many for clinical work makes content creation/class delivery a chaldoctors are limited in their technologic capabilities. It should lenge. The quality is variable and different institutions have work on inexpensive bandwidth which is easily available. It different protocols/approaches to patient care so there is no should be web based so that the teacher and student can log standard content necessarily taught across the country. in from anywhere anytime.

Such a platform should have the ability to demonstrate a Solutions power point presentation as well as a drawing board. It should The use of technology in speciality training is an innovative solube recordable so classes can be replayed. It should be intertion. The use of ‘e’ in training for specialists has been attempted active such as a question and answer (Q and A) session can via teaching websites and distribution of DVD’s/CD’s. However complete the class. these are non-interactive i.e. there is no direct interaction be-

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expert corner

internet based with no special equipment or software required. It enables highly interactive, online classroom learning with live audio, video, white board and presentations. Instructors need only a computer with Internet, webcam and an optional digital notepad. Remote class rooms need a computer with internet, webcam, microphone, speakers and an optional projector.

Instructors can easily create content, manage and schedule courses.

The advantages of virtual Figure 2: Cisco Learning Environment (CLE) live e-teaching in medicine are several. One trainer can teach multiple students in multiple geographic locations at the same time, obviating the issue of teacher shortage. The best teachers from around the world can participate in teaching increasing the quality of education for each individual student. The same content can be disseminated to all the students undergoing Figure 3. e-Teaching in Radiology, using Cisco platform, lecture on imaging of Oncologic Emergencies by Dr Carl Aschkenazi from Israel, Consultant Radiologist, Teleradiology Solutions. specialist training so that there is a national consensus on diagnostic and management approach among all trainees/ Virtual medical training centers.The e-classes can be recorded and replayed so they Since May 2010, a not for profit trust ‘Heart strings, a Peocan be viewed repeatedly by the same group or new trainees ple4people initiative’ run by Dr Sunita Maheshwari, a pediatric through the internet. The question and answer sessions are cardiologist in Bangalore, partnered with Cisco Systems to pifully interactive and similar to a normal classroom. Additionally, lot live interactive e-teaching in Pediatric Cardiology. From May no significant up-front cost is involved as the system is fully 2010 to September 2011, 125 simultaneous e-classes have Internet based. There is no hardware or servers or software to been conducted by faculty across India and abroad, using this install and maintain. technology, in Pediatric Cardiology for postgraduates in BangaWe believe that e-teaching is an innovative solution that can lore, Kolkata, Chennai, Delhi and Nigeria. be applied, not just to Pediatric Cardiology and Radiology as Similarly in radiology, Teleradiology Solutions has used the has been successfully done in India, but to all branches of e-teaching method to disseminate teaching in radiology to specialist and superspecialist medical training in India and this postgraduates in India as well as to practicising radiologists. Dr part of the world.

Dharmaprakash and Dr Sridhar have been coordinating daily training sessions which are beamed to radiologists in Delhi, Author Hyderabad and Mumbai using the Cisco e-teaching platform.

Additionally, a series of e-lectures by distinguished international faculty in radiology have been delivered from locations such as Dr Arjun Kalyanpur Phoenix, AZ, Birmingham, AL, Ann Arbor, MI, Philadelphia, PA Chief Radiologist and CEO of Teleradiology and Jerusalem, Israel, which have been viewed in real time by Solutions, Bangalore; and Board Advisor to radiologists and postgraduates at locations throughout India.

Telerad Tech The Cisco Remote Education Center platform is completely november / 2011 www.digitallearning.in

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Serra Pre-school eyes Pan-India operations

GEMS Education partners with UNESCO

Serra International Pre-school has entered into a joint venture with EtonHouse International Education Group of Singapore to launch a chain of international pre-schools across India.

The Singapore-based group is well-established in Asia with 52 schools and pre-schools across Singapore, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Korea, Vietnam, Japan and India with students from 54 different nationalities.

“We decided to invest Rs 100 crore for setting up 100 franchised international pre-schools by next year and 1000 franchised international pre-schools in the next seven years across India. Our aim is to revolutionise the early childhood education in the country by providing world-class curriculum,” Serra International Pre-Schools Chairman, Arun Arora said.

“For the next year, we want to focus our expansion plans across Pune, Mumbai, and Gujarat in the west, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Secunderabad in the South Delhi/NCR and Punjab in the north, These, we believe are some of the key markets that value high quality international pre-school education and would enthusiastically welcome an offering such as ours,” said Mr. Arora.

Pre-school education market is set to reach USD 1 billion mark by 2012 against USD 750 million at present. “The Indian pre-school market is set to become the largest in the world. In India, the pre-school segment is currently worth USD 750 million and is expected to reach USD 1 billion by 2012,” Serra International Pre-Schools Chairman, Arun Arora.

Haryana to implement RTE Act from Nov 11 The Haryana government is going to implement the Right to Education Act (RTE) in state-run schools from November 11. The RTE Act will be implemented to ensure free and compulsory education to all children in the age group of 6-14.

The government will implement the RTE Act in all state- run schools from November 11, coinciding with the birth anniversary of India first Education Minister Maulana Abul Kalam Azad.

As per the Act, any cost that prevents a child from accessing school will be borne by the state which shall have the responsibility of enrolling the kid as well as ensuring attendance and completion of eight years of schooling.

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GEMS Education has announced partnership with The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to undertake world’s largest leadership training programme, wherein 10,000 school principals will be trained globally.

The first phase of the programme will involve India, Kenya and Ghana. Over a period of four years 10,000 school principals will be trained in these countries. In India, 3500 principals will be trained under the ‘Leadership Programme’.

In developing countries like India, there is very little or negligible training programme for school principals, which in many ways has hampered the effective delivery of education. Therefore, there is an urgent need of leadership training for principals that will help them improve their skills in school management and, thus, enabling them to innovate and offer much more effective and efficient learning at all level of education – benefitting thousands of teachers and millions of students.

GEMS Education will undertake this leadership training programme through its not-for-profit organization – The Varkey GEMS Foundation, which is established to improve access to education for 10 million underprivileged children worldwide. This initiative is part of the Varkey GEMS Foundation’s commitment to action the ‘10,000 Principals Leadership Programme’, announced by former President of United States of America Bill Clinton at the Clinton Global Initiative annual meeting in New York, USA, on September 22, 2011. Bill Clinton is the honorary Chair of the Varkey GEMS Foundation.

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